In general, a heat conduction type sensor refers to a thermal type sensor comprising a temperature sensor and a heater, and obtaining physical information such as on barometric pressure, humidity, or flow velocity, etc. of an ambient medium by measuring temperature changes caused by heat conduction to the ambient medium, such as gas, etc., of an object, such as thin film or wire, etc., heated by a heater, using the temperature sensor. The heat conduction type barometric sensor which measures the pressure of the ambient gas, like the degree of vacuum and the like, from a temperature change in an object by heat conduction as above has a problem that, in general, with respect to the relation between the distance from the heated object to the heat sink and the mean free path of the gas, if the barometric pressure increases to around 1 atm from vacuum, there is hardly any change resulting from heat escape caused by heat conduction with respect to a change in barometric pressure, and thus sensitivity substantially become null.
The present inventors invented a heat conduction type barometric sensor capable of measuring gas pressure including the degree of vacuum with high sensitivity in a barometric pressure of 1 atm or even higher by facilitating heat escape from the heated thin film by generating an air stream by vibration using an electrostatic attraction as an excitation means vibrating the thin film of the thin film Pirani vacuum sensor as a heat conduction type barometric sensor (Patent Document 1). The present inventors used diode as a temperature sensor in a thin film state (Patent Document 2), and invented a current detection type thermocouple capable of detecting a short-circuit Seebeck current of a thermocouple (Patent Document 3). The present inventors invented using diode as thin film shape heater (Patent Document 4), and using a thermocouple as a heater (Patent Document 5). The present inventors invented a heat conduction type sensor measuring a flow velocity or the degree of vacuum by forming them as a cantilever-shaped thin film (Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-103611). The inventors invented a temperature sensor capable of detecting temperature difference with high sensitivity and high accuracy by integrating a Seebeck current for a predetermined amount of time (Japanese Patent Application No. 2009-188088).